Category: Internet

HTML5 and Video

Recently a client asked me to put up a video on her new website. The one thing I knew for certain was my solution had to be HTML5 friendly, but also backwards-compatible for all the clientele still using IE (well, IE7 & 8 – I’ve mostly given up on IE6). When I first started coding HTML, RealAudio was the solution everybody used, now a lot of video is Flash-based. But wait, Flash isn’t exactly a universal solution.

I started my research with the Video chapter of Dive Into HTML5. After reading, I knew that no one format of video was going to work. I also needed a player that would be easy to integrate.

I found a list of HTML5 players on this HTML5 Video Player comparison page and looked for one that was free, open-source, had flash fallback and was easy to integrate and theme. My choice was Projekktor. There might be better ones, but I had limited time to play around with different players and this one had good documentation. Next, I had to find an encoder… or two or three.

Testing Typekit and rolling in type

My blog title & entry title fonts have been changed courtesy of Typekit. The fonts used are Tenby Six for the blog title and Tenby Five for the entry titles, both by Paragraph, an Australian foundry. I’ve only signed up for the trial membership for now so I can test it out before committing further. You can sign up yourself, or I can give you one of the five memberships they gave me for signing up.

Another blog using Typekit is Bobulate, belonging to Liz Danzico. The font she is using is called Skolar.  Looking at her blog then lead me to Typedia which is a site to which she contributed. That should keep me occupied for a while.